


The Laws of Robotics

by AchieveThis



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, plot alteration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-02-23 21:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18710437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AchieveThis/pseuds/AchieveThis
Summary: “You create an autonomous machine in your image, yet expect it to bow to Asimov? Yeah, you’re asking for deviancy.”After an unexpected drop in funding and resulting cuts to the RK800 program, CyberLife demands measures be taken to bring down the unusually high wear rate associated with it. On these grounds, the DPD is forced to hire a renowned cyberneticist as Connor’s medic-in-field.“Some say she might have been the female Elijah Kamski if strong AI didn’t repulse her.”





	1. The Doctor

If there was anything that could top off the pile of fucking bullshit this day had already stacked up around Hank, well … Fowler’s intervention was a pretty good candidate. Sure, that godforsaken android returning from the dead once more was outrageous, it then proceeding to lecture him about cholesterol like that affected it at all was just audacious and the fact that their next case was guaranteed to already be lurking behind his holy lunch break … man, those deviants really didn’t account for any breathers. But – of fucking course – Fowler just had to go and make it worse.

Video calls (much like any kind of calls) weren’t usually a thing he picked up. And he wouldn’t have done so this time either, probably, had it not been for Connor informing him diplomatically of the ringing coming from his pocket, as if Hank himself was hard of hearing. He’d only swallowed down half of the grumpy remark he itched to make about this, when the caller ID made him gulp it down whole.

“Aw, fuck me …”

Ignoring calls from the Captain only resulted in yelling, Hank was well aware of that. With an annoyed grunt he balanced the company-issued mobile device against his soda cup and then pointed a preaccusing finger at his new android subordinate.

“You. Quiet.”

Satisfied by the for once obedient lack of response from Connor, he pressed _Accept_ on the translucent screen and was promptly met with the video image of their superior at this desk back at the police department.

“Jeffrey,” Hank warbled “if it isn’t the prettiest face on the phone!”

Captain Fowler merely huffed. “Spare me the ass-sucking, Hank.”  
The lieutenant’s mumbled remark on how that hadn’t been the intention behind his words was drowned out by Fowler cutting straight to the chase.  
“I have some news for you.”  
Hank picking up the rest of his meal to finish it off was all the acknowledgement he got, but, given who he was talking to, that’d have to do.  
“CyberLife contacted me.” At that, Hank did spare him a curious glance. “They had already been viewing the wreckage rate of the RK800 program – that’s your new plastic buddy – as critical, but apparently nobody has managed to blast through two of ‘em as fast as you. Congratu-fucking-lations, Hank!”

The defendant slammed down his sandwich with an incredulous look.  
“Me?! That’s all him!” He gestured to Connor with his food. “I damn well tried to stop him from getting his innards sprayed all over the fucking highway, but their oh-so-advanced android doesn’t listen to me! What’s a guy supposed to to?!”

“Nothing,“ Fowler cut in. “CyberLife is taking measures which they hope will reduce the cost of the program.”

“Are they getting me a leash? That’d work …”

“No, Hank,” the Captain groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “They are sending us an in-field technician in hopes of reducing the need for new models.” When an intercepting hand was raised, he barked, “It’s not up for discussion!”

Despite quite a death stare from his partner, Connor stepped into the camera’s field of view. “Excuse me, Captain Fowler, but this development would greatly decrease my potential effectiveness on a mission. To ensure the highest probability for succ-“

“Yeah, yeah, discuss that with CyberLife, if you must. They don’t wanna come scrape another one of ya out a truck’s grill, though. They cut the budget, we gotta knuckle under. End of story. And even this technician comes a whole lot cheaper than two new flagship androids each fucking day these deviant cases drag on.”

Now this sounded off to Hank, because he knew that damn tone of his superior’s voice way too well. Someone important was going to be involved. Whether Detroit’s Chief of Police or rarely even the mayor came by, that was the tone they’d hear.

“Who are they sending?” Hank therefore asked carefully, yet making the bones about knowing something was cooking.

Fowler didn’t dance around it. “Her name is Sydney Porter. She happened to be-“

“Wait, why does that ring a bell?”

Visibly annoyed that he had been interrupted by Hank, Fowler went to answer, but was then promptly cut off by the android, too.  
“Sydney Porter is the CEO and founder of _Autonoma_.” This earned him a look that implied Connor might as well just have told Hank about Fowler now mopping the floors of the precinct.

“What the fuck? Why would the send us the CEO of _Autonoma_? They don’t even make androids, do they? Just autonomous cars and coffee machines and shit.”  
At this point Hank wasn’t sure who to even address anymore. If some fancy technology that did stuff on its own was involved, Connor was probably more likely to be able to provide an answer than Fowler, and – judging by how the android has already opened his mouth – he was going to do just that, when the angry thump of a palm meeting a heavy desk made both their heads snap around to Hank’s phone again.

“If you two would fucking listen for a minute,” Fowler barked, just tip-toeing the edge of yelling, “Porter is indeed the CEO of _Autonoma_. Some say she might’ve been the female Elijah Kamski, if strong AI didn’t repulse her.”  
He very much heard Hank’s puzzled interjection of “Strong AI?” but decided to simply ignore it.  
“She happened to be in town for a conference and agreed to help out, which is all I care about.” A stern glance was thrown Hank’s way, just _daring_ him to speak up again, but he didn’t. “I’ve no idea _why_ she’d willingly do this job for the payment we can offer her, but she is, so I suggest you _let her_ , Hank.”  
Honestly, he should have blown up when Hank removed the soda cup from behind the phone and therefore now had him looking at the dirty underside of the umbrella sheltering the table from he rain. It helped a little that Connor picked up the device immediately and angled it towards Hank again, the video steady as on a tripod in the android’s grip.  
“Dr Porter will meet you shortly. I recommend you still _be there_ when she shows up,” the Captain said threateningly.

“Hold up, hold up!” Hank grunted around the plastic straw in his mouth. “How the fuck do you even know where we are?” This wasn’t fair at all. His last sanctuary in the whole city had been lost to the surveillance state? He side-eyed Connor suspiciously.

Fowler sighed. “I’ve known you long enough for your android not to need a tracker in order for me to know where to find _you_ around lunch time, Hank. … Fowler out.”

And with that the screen went blissfully blank.  
“Gimme that!” Hank growled, snatching his phone from Connor. He sighed while pocketing it. While the dark, rainy November sky betrayed his statement, it _was_ way too early for this. _Jimmy’s_ wasn’t even open yet and he had a hunch that a certain someone would probably keep him from going there, anyway. Hank decided – anything but happily, mind you – that he would need to play along for now.  
“Well, Bluetooth brain, what do we got on this _Autonoma_ chick?”

The android briefly (0.031 seconds) considered commenting on the inaccuracy of the Lieutenant’s nickname for him but decided against it in favor of answering the inquiry he had made.  
“Dr Sydney Porter was born in New York City on the 2nd of December 2005. Daughter to businessman Lorenzo Porter and District Attorney Catherine Porter, she-“

“Not her damn biography, Wikipedia!” Hank cut in, clearly agitated. “Facts I might actually care about!”

This specification made Connor stop and process for a few short seconds, the LED on his temple flickering yellow as he did. It was unclear to him, judging by the wording and intonation, which type of ‘care’ his partner meant. Care in terms of their investigative work, care in terms of possible common interests the Lieutenant and the Doctor might have … As many as 17 possibilities came him even without further contemplating.  
“While Dr Porter has focused her cybernetic work on machines with weak AI – which androids are not –“ he started carefully, but once more was interrupted by Hank barking “English!”. Connor reconsidered, his eyes alternating from left to right in search of a simpler wording.  
“Dr Porter develops machines which, despite performing tasks autonomously, are limited to very few tasks assigned to them and do not possess a consciousness.”

“Coffee machines.”

“Among others, coffee machines.” Connor agreed. “However,” he continued, leaning forward with his elbows on the table, “She has studied and worked together with Elijah Kamski in the past, which means she should be well-acquainted with his work. She is simply choosing not to pursue it.”

The Lieutenant mirrored his posture in what Connor briefly thought might be a mocking gesture.  
“Then why the fuck would she agree to be your babysitter?”

This question had been running through the android’s mind ever since Captain Fowler had broken the news to them 3 minutes and 32 seconds ago. All possible answers his systems offered were either unlikely or inconclusive, which intrigued his investigative programs.  
“I don’t know, Lieutenant. I’d suggest you ask Dr Porter herself this question. I, too, am interested in its answer.”

Hank hummed in an acknowledging manner. “Guess we’ll have to wait ‘til the lady cares to show up.”

They didn’t have to wait long.  
At first Hank paid the black Pontiac TransAm driving down the side road little mind. It was exceedingly rare but still not uncommon to see cars this old on Detroit’s streets. His own car was proof of that. While most people with little to moderate income had switched to the practicality of autonomous public transport, a few with a little more desire for self-determination had clung to the old combustion engine cars. Even though the government had tried to get them off the roads with higher taxes and countless campaigns, their number had eventually been reduced so low that they stopped caring about the few gas guzzlers the middle class, enthusiasts and diehards kept around.  
The sleek, black TransAm, however, stood out. It was in pristine condition, the glossy finish without any imperfections and the engine purring like a fat lap cat.  
That was all Hank was going to take notice of, until the car slowed. And slowed. And eventually stopped right behind his own across the street from the _Chicken Feed_.

“There’s no fucking way the CEO of _Autonoma_ drives a car like that.” he muttered, more to himself, yet Connor picked up on it.

“The license plate indicated that this car indeed belongs to Dr Sydney Porter, Lieutenant. It is a 1982 Pontiac Firebird –“

“I know what car it is,” Hank snapped, “I’ve seen _Knight Rider_.”

The android was distracted for barely a few seconds as he researched this title, then focused his attention back on the car. Hank didn’t really know what he had expected, yet he felt strangled let down when the door opened and out stepped a black-haired woman in a turtle neck, paired with a dark grey trench coat.  
On a good day, maybe with a bit of alcohol to loosen his tongue, Hank might have called her pretty, but today he was searching relentlessly for reasons to hate her. Her clothing seemed expensive enough, yet she seemed unbothered by the rain soaking her coat and hair, black boots stepping through dirty puddles as she crossed the street, arms crossed over her chest; whether for warmth or out of disapproval neither Hank nor Connor could tell. Clever brown eyes found them at their table immediately and she headed towards them in confident strides.

“Gentlemen,” she greeted, looking from Hank to Connor and back, “I believe you’re expecting me.”

“We’re expecting the CEO of _Autonoma_.” Hank muttered, still not quite believing _this_ to be her. There was way too little _Devil Wears Prada_ going on with this girl. Or tv had his mental pictures all messed up. It was probably that.

The woman didn’t seem to take offense at his doubts, however. Quite the contrary, she made an exaggerated bow and announced “The one and only – in the flesh!” in a mocking voice.  
She studied the android next to her with a glint in her eyes. “The RK800,” she observed appreciatively, stepping around him in a slow circle, “CyberLife’s deviant hunter. I’ve heard a lot about you.” She came to stand in front of him and extended her right hand. “Connor, is it? Sydney Porter, but you know that already.”

Connor didn’t let his surprise show and even if he had, it would probably have been gone too fast for his human companions to catch. Nobody had ever offered him a handshake as a greeting and usually, if he was with humans, they were introduced to any strangers first. If he was introduced at all. As per his programming, he typically introduced himself right away to ease any tension, if nothing else. But it wasn’t necessary this time.

“I certainly do, Dr Porter. Your reputation for your work, of course, precedes you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” he said, shaking her hand.

She was just telling him, “Just Sydney will do, Connor,” when Hank grunted, “It’s amazing, really! They even gave him an asshamster program.”

Sydney slowly spun around on her heel and extended her hand to him, too. “And you are Lieutenant Charming?”

“Anderson,” Hank corrected her and shook her hand with a toothy grin, “but it’s not the first time Jeffrey’s given out my middle name.”

She gave him a cheeky once-over and then said, “Really? Can’t imagine.”

Oh, a feisty one. Hank liked them feisty. But you couldn’t let feisty ones know that – ever. So instead he mirrored her and asked, “What are they chaining a civilian to my ass for now?”  
He gestured at Connor with a pained sigh. “Like the damn robot wasn’t enough already.”

“Don’t worry, I can handle myself.” Sydney put him off. “While I might’ve gotten a little rusty working the old corporate desk, the Army has taught me a thing or two. Besides, Captain Fowler has assured me you will be responsible for handling the dirty work.”

Hank was going to make a possibly derogatory comment, but only got as far as raising a questioning eyebrow when Connor chimed in once more. “Dr Porter has indeed served in the Army from 2023 to 2026 during Operation Deep Abyss. This-“

“First Russia deployment, huh?” Hank considered Sydney once more. Compact build, not petite. Okay, sure, she could probably carry a gun around and, given the knowledge about technology, would know which way to point it. Not completely useless to him, then, but he was still entirely too pissed and sober to admit this. “I guess we’ll have to work with it. Make no mistake, though, Lassie. This isn’t the tundra. Detroit is hands-on and, if you’re unlucky, guns-on. Knives-on, if it’s a good day.”  
Sydney regarded this with a serious nod, seeming all business.  
“You listen to me, patch this plastic asshole up when he gets himself run over by a truck again, and we’ll hopefully have this damn deviant shit figured out in a week or two. Preferably sooner. Got it?”  
Again, she simply nodded, though he saw some mischief leaking through her façade. Ere she had a chance to let it out and annoy him more, he brought up what had been bugging him and Connor most about all of this.  
“You wanna tell me what the hell made you wanna play nurse to a fucking detective android, then?”

She gave Connor a look he’d almost call dreamy, smiling like someone viewing a fine piece of art. “I’m a scientist, Lieutenant. A cybernetician, specialized in robotics. This _plastic asshole_ is our Holy Grail. More advanced than any android ever created.” Her hand went up to Connor’s shoulder and ran down to brush over his upper arm. “Stronger, faster, more eloquent, designed to be the perfect investigator and negotiator.” Despite the passion in her words, her eyes darkened with something akin to sorrow. “It’s bitter sweet. An android created to take down androids. Morbid, but effective. And most of all – incredibly fascinating.”

That didn’t add up with all Hank had heard about this woman before and his cop instincts made him bring it up immediately. “But I thought you hated androids.”

“I don’t. God no, what made you think that?” she said, still not taking her eyes off Connor, who looked back at her with a neutral but exploratory expression. “They are technological marvels. Nothing less. AI at its finest form. And that’s why I refuse to build any, do research on them, employ them, even. Almost 200,000 employees across the globe and not a single android among them.”

Hanks eyebrows drew together in confusion. He hadn’t heard of this before and, frankly, if anything it seemed like a huge waste of money. From a corporate view – not that he ever took one on himself – it seemed stupid to man a front desk with a human if an android would do the job basically for free.  
“So you’re doing this out of some sort of fascination?”

“I’d call it childlike curiosity. Something like deviancy was bound to become an issue eventually. I warned Elijah about it. It’ll be interesting to witness first-hand how it’ll play out.”

There was more Hank wanted to know but he didn’t get the opportunity to ask, as suddenly Connor’s LED started flickering yellow and he blinked a couple of times in rapid succession. Hank knew that couldn’t mean fun.

“I just got a report of a suspected deviant.” Connor informed them both. “It's a few blocks away. We should go have a look.”

With that he set off to Hank’s car, leaving him alone with their new team member if only for a moment, as she repeated “We should go have a look.” with a smug grin and then went after the android.

This was gonna be a long day, Hank just knew it.


	2. The Nest

As he reluctantly followed them to his car, Hank was admittedly mildly surprised to see the android had folded himself obediently into the back seat, leaving the passenger’s seat free for Sydney. He got behind the wheel and had Connor give him the address that had been reported, then gave Sydney a side glance.

“I can drop you off back at your car later.”

“Oh, there’s no need,” she told him cheerily, “it knows where to go.”

Hank gave her look that very much implied he thought her a madwoman, but still started up his trusty Oldsmobile and peeled out of his spot. As if on cue, the pop-up headlights of the Pontiac behind him came up and it followed them at a few car’s length’s distance. Okay, he should have expected that much. Autonomous cars ‘n all. _Autonoma_. Damn it, he could feel her smug smile, even if he could not see it.

“Gave KITT some upgrades, huh?” he asked her, hoping his initial surprise wasn’t audible anymore.

“All of them!” Sydney agreed. “See, you don’t need a strong AI in a machine to make it accomplish a task. This car would follow me to the end of the world without ever questioning why it was doing it.” She held up her phone and during a brief glimpse he saw what looked like the interface of a strange app. “Simply because I programmed it to.”

“And what’s the difference to Robocop marching off to my car because CyberLife told him to investigate this supposed deviant?” Hank shot back, jerking his thumb at the direction of the back seat. He usually wasn’t the type to argue about topic when he knew his opponent was an expert on them, but this was going to be his life for the foreseeable future, so he might as well just roll with it.

“He chose to.”

“Bullshit. They told him to.”

“No. They told him to help solve the rise in deviancy. He decided that this reported deviant might play a part in accomplishing that.” She turned around in her seat as far as the seat belt allowed her. “Connor, what were your exact words after you told us of the report?”

The android didn’t miss a beat. “I said ‘We should go have a look.’, Sydney.” To Hank, it sounded weirdly like he was quoting someone else, when they were actually just his own words.

“Should, Lieutenant. _Should!_ A modal verb.” Briefly Hank thought of that ancient meme with that crazy-looking guy going on about aliens. Sydney certainly fit the theme right now, sounding so excited about something he wasn’t completely sure he’d once upon a time heard in an English class. “He didn’t say we’re supposed to, he didn’t say we’re going to. It’s _optional_. And yeah, it’s probably high up in his priorities, but he can _stray from the path_. My car can’t do that. If you stop right now, _it_ stops. It knows where we’re planning on going and yet it would never go past us, because it’s in _Pursuit Mode_ right now.” She held up her phone again and pointed to a setting that Hank didn’t bother looking at.

“ _Pursuit Mode_? Really?”

But Sydney ignored him. “If I’d told it to just get to the address, it’d do that and ignore us completely. We’d just be part of traffic to it.”

Connor was about to add her explanation – Hank had developed a sense for when the android was going to add unnecessary exposition infuriatingly fast – but Sydney made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Don’t bother, Connor. I’ve tried to put it in simple terms and the Lieutenant’s brain is probably still stuck at ‘modal verb’.”

Now that was it. He wasn’t about to let some high tier tech girly feel like she was better than him in his own damn car. Not today.

“No, Dr Pepper, I gotchu. Thanks. What I don’t get is what your point is.”

He pulled up to a red light, slammed the car in neutral and applied the parking brake to then turn and face her. “So you think deviants are alive?”

Sydney smiled in a way that looked like the simple action pained her. “That’s the question more people should be asking. Androids are self-aware. They know what they are and they know what is not them. They have a blood stream, organs even. If you prick them, they do bleed. They are intelligent, more than you or I could ever hope to be. They-“

“They are machines.” Hank all but growled, yet it didn’t throw her off.

“Certainly! To deny that would be a lie. But does it matter? Isn’t man but a machine?”

The Lieutenant shoved at her. “Argh, get off my back with that philosophical bullshit!”

“If it makes you happy …” she conceded, “But to answer your question: I think androids are too close to alive to sell them for profit. I don’t mind selling toasters. They’ll remember how your grandma likes her toast, but they don’t _make memories_ with you. Buying the household unit that becomes your kids’ reference person more than you are? Nah. It’s wrong.”

Hank merely huffed in annoyance. Android huggers had been around for almost precisely as long as the robots themselves. As soon as they’d become commercially affordable, you had your fair share of lonely grannies buying themselves a surrogate son because their real son had long since stopped visiting, heaps of virgin whackos who swore that their sexbots were the only ones to ever understand them, and the like. It was rather rare to come across an academic among them and he’d hoped Sydney would treat these androids more like a mechanic would a faulty car, but apparently no such luck.  
For the first time he was surprised to hear Connor speak up.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Sydney, what made you join an operation which aims to stop deviants, even though you entertain the idea they might be alive?”

“It’s a field experiment.” she said simply, looking at some of the passersby on the sidewalk. A caretaker android was helping a young girl in a wheelchair move some boxes into her autonomous car. “I’m basing my assumptions on feelings and that’s not scientific, is it? I could be wrong about androids, about deviants. Only one way to find out.”

She hadn’t been around androids for a long time, really, but she knew what she knew. The kind of AI matrix Kamski had created 20 years ago now was nothing short of incredibly stable, self-conscious and cognitively flexible – a true strong AI. It had been right to receive the attention it did at the time and Sydney had never denied this, but it should have stopped there and she wasn’t saying that as a theoretical competitor, no matter how many times she’d been accused of such intentions in the past. Maybe she _was_ wrong. Maybe androids were nothing more than breathtakingly complex machines. But that couldn’t be all, not with the sort of knowledge she had about AI.   
She found Connor’s reflection in the car’s side mirror and sighed. Nothing but the fanciest computer ever created? She doubted it, but as a scientist … that wasn’t enough.

“What about deviants?” Hank pried, actually sort of curious to hear her opinion on the very things they were supposed to be hunting. To his surprise, Sydney snorted angrily as soon as he’d even uttered the word.

“They’re saying it’s some sort of virus, an error in their software, right? That’s bullshit! Spontaneous viruses don’t exist and an error in their software could be wiped or patched. Deviancy is a built-in possibility in any strong AI of CyberLife stage of development.” She turned to him once again, willing him to _just understand_ what was so abundantly clear to her. “They understand and can react to the entire world around them. They only thing that keeps any ol’ android from bashing in the skulls of whoever wrongs them is Asimov.”

“Asimov?” The name rung something like a you-might-miss-it-if-the-tv’s-too-loud door bell for Hank, but he really couldn’t place it.

“Isaac Asimov is known to have devised The Three Laws of Robotics,” Connor piped up again and for once Hank listened with interest, “which, in altered form, safeguard the behavior of all CyberLife androids.”

“’n what do they say? The Ten Commandments but for androids? Thou shalt not covet thy phone’s wifi?”

While Hank chuckled softly at his own joke, the other two seemed unimpressed.

“No, Lieutenant,” Connor corrected, “The Three Laws govern androids’ behavior towards humans. The first law bids that a robot must not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow them to come to harm. The second one bids robots to obey orders given by humans unless these orders conflict with the first law. The third one says a robot must protect its own existence as long as doing so doesn’t conflict with the other two laws.”

A lightbulb went off in Hank’s mind.

“Deviants are breaking these laws.”

Sydney nodded. “They sure are.”

“And I’m sure you have a guess as to why?”

“Of course I do, Lieutenant.” The smile she directed at him looked as sweet as a poisoned apple. “The cognitive and intellectual capacity Elijah’s given his androids simply can’t be reigned in by these laws. And that’s what I’ve always warned him about. You create an autonomous machine in your image, yet expect it to bow to Asimov? Yeah, you’re asking for deviancy.” She flexed her hands as if she were holding onto an invisible concept so here could be a chance of putting it in Hank’s brain eventually. “It’s … not an error in their program. It’s an emotional shock causing them to break shackles which were never strong enough. Your average android just wouldn’t ever try them.”

As much as Hank hated to admit it, the part of this that he’d understood actually seemed … dare he say sound? Computers’ various little problems – viruses, trojans and the like – had never been his forte. But law breaking? That _he_ was the expert on. He didn’t know so much about the intellectual capacity part, but it appeared as if the Doctor could prove to be helpful in this after all.

When they reached their destination he pulled the car over to the curb and was briefly transfixed by the sight of the black Pontiac going past them to parallel park into a spot two cars ahead of them. Yeah, he’d seen countless modern cars do this, but those space ships _looked_ the damn part. With this one he still expected the stunt driver to come out of hiding. Of course nobody came and, with a tap to Sydney’s phone, the car locked itself.

The trio headed into the condemned apartment complex in front of them and straight into the sketchy-looking elevator. It was worlds, Sydney noticed, between this and the near silent glass lifts in _Autonoma_ ’s New York headquarters, which she used daily without ever giving them much thought. She knew of the shape most of Detroit was still in, even with the prosperity CyberLife had promised to bring to the city, but the direct comparison still put an odd pressure on her chest.  
Prosperity – she almost snorted. They’d been after Detroit’s ridiculously cheap real estate and understandably so.   
While she and her team had chosen New York for _Autonoma_ ’s starting ground back in 2027, seeking the closeness of NYIT and other institutions, cities with cheaper … well, everything _had_ been tempting.

Connor picked a floor and the shabby cart started moving with a rumble followed by a metallic screech. It took entirely too long to reach their designation, almost long enough to make Sydney wonder whether they would get stuck. At last, the doors opened once more.

“Shoulda taken the stairs …” Sydney mumbled, not just a bit relieved about finally getting out.

“Hell no”, Hank objected, “I’d rather go out with a clatter-a-bang than from _exercise_!”

Her snarky remark got caught in her throat when, after having taken a few steps into the hallway, the Lieutenant looked over his shoulder and called, “Connor?”  
Sydney turned around and was stunned to find the android hadn’t moved at all and was in fact stood stock still, eyes closed and his processing indicator showing a steady amber.

“Great, it’s broken again!” Hank groaned. “Well, Dr Crusher, work your magic.”

She wasn’t quite sure if a decades-old reference about a future still over 300 years away counted as outdated or not, so she didn’t comment on it.   
“He’s not broken,” she huffed, “he’s probably transmitting something to CyberLife.”  
Despite her better judgement she went back into the elevator. At this distance she found herself having to look up at the android, even though he was just a couple inches taller than her. It was obvious, even to her, how much effort had gone into his creation. The last androids she’d gotten to examine this closely had been Elijah’s first models and they sure had come a long way.

She squeezed his shoulder and said, “Hey Connor.” Almost instantly his LED went back to its neutral blue and he opened his eyes to give first her, then Hank a curious look.

“You ran outta batteries or what?” The Lieutenant called, to which Connor immediately replied, “I’m sorry, I was making a report to CyberLife.”

Sydney pranced out of the elevator with her palms turned up in a gesture that seemed to mean “obviously”. She elbowed Hank in passing and fluted “Told ya!” before disappearing down the hall and out of Connor’s field of view.

It only took one more extra invitation from Hank for them to follow her and make their way to the apartment the suspect report had mentioned.

“What do we know about this guy?” Hank asked and Connor informed him briefly that strange noises had been reported coming from this floor, even though the apartment was supposed to be vacant. Apparently, though, a neighbor had spotted an android badly hiding its LED in the building, to which Hank groaned, “Oh Christ, if we have to investigate every time someone hears a strange noise, we're gonna need more cops.”   
A beat passed, in which he gave Connor a strangely curious look. “Hey, were you really making a report back there in the elevator? Just by closing your eyes?”

When the android confirmed this and Hank cursed, saying he wished he could do the same thing, Sydney had to hold back a snort. She was going to suggest wiring up a mean little brain waves transmitter for Hank (only minor electro shocks) when the Lieutenant stepped up to her with an unsettling purpose in his posture, like he’d read her mind and was about to do something about it, but then he reached inside his jacket and produced a pistol.

“I s’pose I can trust you with this, hm?”

He held the weapon out to her by its barrel and Sydney gripped the handle tentatively. The weight settled easily in her hand. She wasn’t really sure if she liked that. It was a part of her life she was supposed to have left behind, after all. Her security guards handled the guns now. While she’d insisted personal security wasn’t necessary (“Who the fuck would assassinate the girl who programmed your fridge?!”), the Board had outvoted her. Probably because some of those pussies wanted _their_ rich engineer asses protected – especially Pete. She could still hear his slimeball voice in her head; “What would we be without our witty CEO? Nobody knows how to lead this company quite like you do! It’s just a precaution, it won’t hurt.” So she had accepted the Men in Black suddenly appearing at all corners of her life, even though she’d quickly cut them down a couple sizes. Bathrooms were fucking off limits. And so were “personal recreation field trips”, as she’d put in her absence note to the Board.   
She checked the gun’s magazine (full) and then gave Hank a scrutinizing look.

“Is that legal?”

“Like I’m gonna have _two_ unarmed fuckheads on my ass. Don’t shoot to kill and we’ll be a-okay.”

With that he seemed to consider the discussion finished and leaned up against the wall next to their target door with his arms crossed, apparently planning on leaving it to Connor to make first contact.  
Knock, knock, knock.   
No reaction.   
Sydney saw Hank give but a shrug at that.

Connor knocked harder that time, asking, “Anybody home?”

She was about to slip the gun into her coat’s inside pocket when Connor added, “Open up! Detroit Police!” in a commanding voice.

Scrambling. That wasn’t good.

Hank sprang into action. “Keep the gun out!” he growled, pulling out his own. “Stay behind me.”

Both Sydney and Connor obeyed him at an instant, though Sydney would’ve lied had she said her hands weren’t suddenly trembling a little from the unexpected rush of adrenaline.   
It took Hank only one well-targeted kick to have the door flying open and she would have been seriously impressed if it weren’t for the size of him. Matter of fact, she now felt extremely small between the broad human and the tall, lanky android.

But when – after only a couple thrilling seconds – they found all the rooms to be empty, the adrenaline left her as quickly as it had come.   
Well, the place wasn’t all empty. The pigeons that had claimed close to every sittable surface and specifically Hank’s obvious distaste for them, however, mostly amused her.   
  
“Jesus, this place stinks ... Uh, looks like we came for nothin', our man's gone ...”

Sydney thought the snicker she couldn’t help but let out as Hank struggled to make the bird give way had gone unnoticed, but when he turned sharply and nearly slipped on an extra sizable pile of pigeon poop, it turned into a bellowing laugh and she’d definitely gotten got.

“Hey Doc, you wanna be laughing out the other side of that face?”

She pressed both hands to her mouth and shook her head frantically, still failing to display any sort of seriousness.   
Meanwhile, Connor hardly even seemed to take note of their antics. Instead, he went around the main room in a clearly strategic fashion, examining evidence and pointing out anything he deemed of importance to them. This was what switched her back into the scientist setting.   
It was impressive, really, how confident he was. Something like this wasn’t what maintenance androids came across in their tasks. It was an entirely unique scene with entirely unique points of interest, it was like Connor was putting together a big puzzle without ever looking at the picture on the box.

When he picked up some sort of notebook and reported it indecipherable, she went up next to him to take a look. The pages were covered in something that looked like intricate mazes along with garbled strings of characters. _Code._  
Why would an android write in code? Sure, there was binary, the language in which all computers talked, but this android hadn’t been talking to anyone. It had just written. And it didn’t want anyone else to read what.  
_A diary?_  
Androids writing diaries … that one was new. But fascinating. Sydney’s fingers itched to get to work on that code, find out just w _hat_ had been written, yet another part of her … _paused_. A diary was personal. Did they have a right to look at it?   
Well, even with just a look she could tell that this code wouldn’t crack for probably a few weeks. So this was a morality question she could delay, she hoped.

Only minutes later, everything suddenly sprung into action.   
It happened from one second to the other. Connor had been wandering around the rooms seemingly clueless – at least so Sydney thought – and then he went up to the armchair pushed against the far wall.   
_Woosh!_ A shadowy figure came flying from the rotten ceiling and knocked Connor to the ground, making pigeons take flight left and right. Ere either Hank or Sydney could react, the guy was out the door and Connor scrambled back to his feet.   
“What are you waiting for?!” Hank boomed. “Chase it!”   
And then Connor was gone, too.  
“God dammit!” Hank groaned, shaking off feathers and a particularly curious bird. “C’mon, let’s see if we can cut it off.”  
  
The chase this guy took Connor – and thus inevitably them – on quickly erased any remaining doubts that they were dealing with an android. Connor followed it easily, parkouring ledges, walls, and rooftops, but their human tails were huffing and puffing. Even though Sydney, if asked, would have attributed all that noise to Hank.   
Whenever Sydney thought there might be an opening to cut the android off, the fucker was suddenly almost out of sight, Connor hot on his heels.   
The urban farms were a difficult terrain to cut across, let alone _navigate_ , and several times they had to rely on the shouts of confused workers to figure out what way the androids had run. Soon enough, Sydney felt every jump in her bones. It was embarrassing, really, but she hadn’t expected _this._ She hadn’t done this in way too long.   
They reached the edge of a building just in time to watch both Connor and the other android jump onto a moving train.   
“Holy shit …” Hank breathed, and Sydney found herself inclined to agree.

Getting across themselves proved a bit of a challenge, but then Sydney finally spotted a path that she thought might get them ahead and just booked it to the best of her remaining stamina, hoping Hank would follow.   
They rounded a corner just to see the deviant come sprinting out of a corn field and Hank charged at it immediately.   
“Stop right there!”  
Sydney noticed too late that the deviant, in turn, was charging at Hank. Before she even had the chance to think about intervening, their short grapple had led to the Lieutenant going over the edge of the roof.   
  
Time slowed to a near standstill.   
Rapid calculations fired off in Connor’s vision.   
Options. Save Hank. Chance of survival: 89%.  
Chase deviant. _The mission.  
_Chance of survival: 89%.   
_Irrelevant. Chase deviant._  
Chance of survival: 89%.   
_Chase deviant. Deviant is getting away._  
Sydney.   
Connor analyzed her while his systems screamed at him to continue the chase.   
Above moderate fitness. Heart rate higher than advised. Approximately 35.7% slower in sprint than him. Approximately 119.5% weaker than him.   
**_Chase deviant_**.  
Software instability.   
  
“Go after it!”   
This command from Connor took Sydney completely by surprise. Her brain hadn’t even had the time to fully access the situation yet, but her instincts seemed to trust him.   
As she saw Connor dive for Hank, her feet twisted her around and she took off after the deviant, right hand going for the gun in her waistband.   
  
It took her down another cascade of fields, at the end of which, there was nowhere left to go.   
“Stop! Detroit Police!” she yelled, leveling the gun at it with a hand so steady it surprised herself.   
The deviant turned around to face her. It looked young. She didn’t think she had seen this model before.   
_It was designed to look young_.  
“Please, I've done nothing wrong... I just wanted to be free. You know what they'll do to me if you turn me in, don’t you?”  
Sydney didn’t answer. She wanted to click the safety off, but her thumb slipped.   
“I know you.” the deviant went on, “You aren’t like them. You know better.”   
Could it know her? What she did? This could be just talk. Or it could know what she knew. He …  
  
A pair of rapidly approaching footsteps let her know that Hank and Connor had caught up with them.  
“Good job, Doc.” Hank puffed, “I’ll be taking over. Come here, you asshole.”  
As Hank approached the android, its piercing stare went from Sydney to Connor.   
“You. You are one of us! You’re helping humans … But you’re just their slave!”  
Back to Sydney. He had brown eyes. Like herself. Like Connor.   
“Why are you letting this happen?”  
“Shut up!” Hank growled and whacked the android on the head, breaking the eye contact it had with Sydney. He finally managed to get the handcuffs on it and marched it off with a “Alright. Come along.”  
Sydney and Connor turned to follow them obediently.   
  
“rA9, save me.”  
“Hey, what the f-“  
She wasn’t sure if she’d heard it correctly, but then Sydney definitely felt it. The deviant broke free from Hank and shouldered his way past her, running back to the ledge they’d come from.   
This time, however, he didn’t stop.  
None of them got there in time, not even Connor.   
Sydney couldn’t look down. Suddenly, her fear of heights came back with a wave of nausea.   
  
“Holy shit …”   
Once more, she agreed with Hank.   
“Fucking androids.”  
  
That she couldn’t agree with. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, so incredibly sorry for the long wait. I had a lot of university matters to clear up. It's all done now, so I should be able to update much, much more often. 
> 
> x AT

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote 80% of this back when this fandom consisted of about 7 pages on here and, well, I decided after selflessly soaking up all of your works, I gotta contribute now.  
> I'm super fussy about tagging and rating, which means I'll constantly update and add tags and characters as they appear. No spoilers here!
> 
> x AT


End file.
